Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 223 



more. He was an ambitious, energetic man, who 

 held his allegiance as being due first to the crown, 

 but who, nevertheless, was always eager to cham- 

 pion the cause of Virginia as against either the In- 

 dians or her sister colonies. The short but fierce and 

 eventful struggle that now broke out was fought 

 wholly by Virginians, and was generally known by 

 the name of Lord Dunmore's war. 



Virginia, under her charter, claimed that her 

 boundaries ran across to the South Seas, to the Pa- 

 cific Ocean. The king of Britain had graciously 

 granted her the right to take so much of the con- 

 tinent as lay within these lines, provided she could 

 win it from the Indians, French, and Spaniards; 

 and provided also she could prevent herself from 

 being ousted by the crown, or by some of the other 

 colonies. A number of grants had been made with 

 the like large liberality, and it was found that they 

 sometimes conflicted with one another. The con- 

 sequence was that while the boundaries were well 

 marked near the coast, where they separated Vir- 

 ginia from the long-settled regions of Maryland and 

 North Carolina, they became exceeding vague and 

 indefinite the moment they touched the mountains. 

 Even at the South this produced confusion, and in- 

 duced the settlers of the upper Holston to consider 

 themselves as Virginians, not Carolinians; but at 

 the North the effect was still more confusing, and 

 nearly resulted in bringing about an intercolonial 

 war between Pennsylvania and Virginia. 



The Virginians claimed all of extreme western 



